


trouble will find me

by fatalsam (bitehard)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Post-Avengers (2012), Pre-Slash, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25124839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitehard/pseuds/fatalsam
Summary: The Avengers have only been living together for a couple of months, but Steve has already learned to know the signs of sleep deprivation in Tony’s face.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 61
Collections: Captain America/Iron Man Fanwork Like it's 2012 Fest





	trouble will find me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Fanwork like is 2012](https://cap-ironman.dreamwidth.org/2077232.html) fest from cap_ironman.
> 
> I hope you like it, anon.

They have only been living together for a couple of months, but Steve has already learned to know the signs of sleep deprivation in Tony’s face.

He must have been awake for a day or a day or a half already. The tension around the eyes, the deepness and color of the bags under his eyes. A different kind of tightness on his mouth, the dryness of his sarcasm, God, even his stand is different, muscles taut from excess of caffeine. He still can keep talking about just one topic so he hasn’t surpassed the 48th hour yet, but he is already near that point.

Steve shouldn’t know all this just with a look; he knows he overanalyzes Tony, more than any other of his recently found teammates-slash-friends.

At first it was just self-preservation, Steve _had_ read the dossier about Tony, _volatile_ , it said, and that’s at least true but maybe without that they could all be dead already; so Steve took into himself the responsability of cheking out what else had he gotten wrong about Tony.

The answer is, as almost everything with him, complicated, because Tony has the amazing capacity of being obnoxius and pragmatic, useful and sarcastic, unbearable and endearing, all the same time. He drives Steve crazy and yet he makes him, and everyone in this little group he had started to feel as a family, laugh. In the process of trying to understand him Steve had realized that he actually liked him.

It was also easier because Steve knew the signs of himself. He knew about self-sacrificing, about the nightmares, about not sleeping to avoid them all. 

He’s talking with Bruce, apparently trying to find a way that he doesn’t end up naked in the field again and Steve has this almost unavoidable need of taking him under his arm and just make him _lay down_. It represses it but he knows there is something there he shouldn’t been feeling, the desire to put a hand in his neck and just make him stop. 

He wonders what kind of expression would make. 

He is going over them to say something and try to convince him of taking a nap, when the alarm goes blaring.

Awesome. 

*

After the last time, in which Tony tried to call the suit and it broke two walls trying to reach him, it is strictly prohibited to do it again so Tony goes to the workshop and Steve follows. 

“You know this is my tower and I will not get lost, don’t you?” Tony says, when he sees Steve entering the lift with him.

“I need my shield,” Steve answers, but he knows is weak.

“I could have delivered it to you, too.”

That’s another thing that Steve should hate but doesn’t: the way Tony always calls on his bullshit, even when Steve isn’t aware of it. He watches him as he enters the code and goes into the shop. 

“Tony. Are you sure you’re in good condition for this?”

It’s mean to come out Captain-America-neutral but Steve-Rogers-worry slips anyway in the use of his name. They evolved past the surname treatment a couple of weeks ago and with it, something changed, Steve can see it. It shouldn’t, it’s just a name, and yet he knows, there is a tension each time they use it with the other one and they are both waiting for it to explode. 

He thinks about it again: his hand covering his neck, just resting, Tony’s eyes going from his mouth to his eyes to his mouth. 

Steve is so fucked. 

Tony stops in his tracks and looks at him, not as Steve is thinking, his eyes searching him as if he was trying to solve a particularly difficult problem. 

“I’m fine, Steve.”

A shiver through his back. He really needs to get his shit together. 

“You need to sleep.”

“You do realize we’re in an emergency, don’t you? Also, I took a nap”.

Steve has been here already.

“When?”

He is already into the suit, faceplate up. He smiles, winks.

“Which day is it?”

Steve sighs.

“Tuesday.”

“Oops.”

Tony closes the faceplate and Clint’s voice sounds in his ear. 

“Captain, Iron Man, there are some bad guys in DC, Small Hulk and Hawkeye already in the quinjet, picking Black Widow as we speak, let’s go.”

“Saved by the bell,” says Tony, “Come on, Cap, I could do this with my eyes closed.”

“Let’s hope you don’t fall asleep and you actually have to do it like that.”

*

He doesn’t think he would actually fall asleep because Tony thrives on adrenaline when he’s like that. “Better than all the legal drugs and some of the illegal ones, too”, he told Steve, some time ago. “Please, just don’t tell me about the illegal ones”, and the laugh in his ear made him smile against his better judgement. Tony is like that: you may hate him and one day he starts being funny and then you know the battle is lost. He does think, however, that Tony is always reckless but specially when he is like this: sleep deprived and with a need to prove that he is ok. He is not, he hasen’t been since New York. Like his powers at this point are his inteligence and a death wish weaponized for the Avengers. 

Steve doesn’t know when the luck is going to run out. 

The Hydra agents are dealt with, the machine from another realm is dealt with, but at the last moment it self-destructs and Tony shields Clint from an grenade and finds himself buried under a ton of debris. 

Steve runs and Hulk howls and lifts rocks until Tony emerges, flying. 

“I’m alive, Big Guy, no need to kill anyone else throwing those. I’m alive. I’m fine.”

Steve frowns, because he is not fine. There is something weird in the way he is moving, he is just not gesturing as usual.

“Can you even move your arms?” Steve says, and again his voice betrays him again, angrier than he wants to let it be. 

Tony lifts the faceplate and looks at him with that face he makes when he is trying to destroy you with just a deadpanned retort, but Hulk goes to him and says “HULK HELP?” and before Tony can object he grabs him from the middle and carries him to the quinjet, which Nat is already starting.

Steve bites his lip, trying to hide the smile because, angry as it is, it’s just too funny the way he is being hoisted.

“Rogers, I swear to god, if I see you smile I swear to God you’ll be waking up to Star Spangled man at five o’clock for the next six months. A year.”

“I’m not laughing”, he says, although that’s a lie.”Clint is, though.”

“Nobody likes a snitch, Captain,” says Clint, smiling. 

*

By the time they arrive again to the Tower Tony is restless, pained and asking for coffee.

Steves tries to stop him, and it seems like he has succeed until he realizes there is just too much silence and goes to a small living room nobody uses and, of course, there he is, on the sofa, a mug in one hand, a tablet on the other one, a guilty expression. With the tank top the purple of his side can’t be seen but Steve knows is there, anyway. 

“Oops?”

“Tony—”his voice does that thing again of giving away what he shouldn’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter. 

He takes the mug from his hand and looks at him from above, and Tony sighs.

“Is it an order?”

“Would it make you sleep if it was?”

Tony laughs.

“No.”

“Then it’s not an order. It’s a request.”

He looks at Steve for long seconds and finally gives up. 

“Whatever. But just a nap and then I’m—” he yawns, apparently losing all the need to fight in a second, “and then I’m back at work.”

Steve sits beside him and makes him raise his head. 

“Don’t you have something better to do, like be righteous at any other room in this dammed tower? I made it big for a reason, you know.”

“You made it big because you like showing off. And no, I don’t have anything else to do. I don’t trust you. I’ll have to keep an eye on you.”

“Lucky me,” Tony says, but he moves and takes a cushion to place it between his head and Steve’s leg. 

“You really should go to bed, you know,” Steve says, soft. 

“It’s better here.”

“It can’t be.”

But he sighs. His hand is near Tony’s hair and, on a whim, caresses it with the tips of his fingers. Tony seems to be falling asleep, his eyes are already closed and is squeezing the tablet on his arms, but he makes a pleasant sound, like a kitten, and Steve leaves his hand there, making impossible patterns against his scalp.

With his other hand, Steve takes out his cell and tries unsuccessfully to read something, while Tony dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language, sorry for any mistakes.


End file.
